Posts Tagged ‘Cruze diesel’

At 46 mpg highway, the new Chevy Cruze Turbo Diesel gives even hybrids a run for their (gas) money.

It looks like your run-of-the-mill Chevrolet Cruze, albeit with a nicely loaded interior. But it only takes a second, after you slip behind the wheel and turn the key, to recognize something’s different.

There’s that chattering sound from under the hood that tells you this is the new 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Turbo Diesel, the first time any of General Motors’ U.S. brands has put an “oil burner” under the hood of a passenger car since 1986. There’s good reason why it’s taken so long considering the disastrous diesels it produced in the mid-‘80s, models so bad they almost single-handedly destroyed the American diesel market.

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But it’s a new world. Technologies such as high-pressure injection and turbocharging have transformed the modern diesel, making them smooth, quiet, quick and clean. Or, at least, that’s what we’ve experienced from other manufacturers, such as Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. So TheDetroitBureau.com went to Hell and back – Hell, Michigan, that is, to see if the new Cruze Turbo Diesel was anywhere near as good as the competition.

The 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel will have the highest highway mileage rating of any non-hybid passenger car sold in the U.S.

The company that all but killed the diesel engine is now hoping to bring it back.

For the first time since 1986, General Motors began selling a diesel-powered passenger car this week, and company officials say that a successful launch of the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Turbo Diesel could convince them to add additional “oil burners” to the line-up.

“We’ll be watching very closely,” said Chris Perry, vice president of marketing for the Chevrolet brand, adding that with the launch of the Cruze Diesel, Chevy hopes to give some “real competition” to the European makers that currently dominate the small but growing U.S. diesel market, especially Volkswagen.

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Diesels were a significant part of the U.S. market in the late 1970s and early 1980s as American motorists struggled to deal with rising fuel prices after two Mideast energy shocks. But the market took a tumble late in the ‘80s, in part due to some major quality problems with GM diesels, especially an Oldsmobile engine that had a tendency to fail catastrophically.

General Motors appears to be reversing its long-standing resistance to the use of diesel power for its passenger car line-up – and may soon introduce an “oil burner” into its Chevrolet Cruze line-up, which would give the compact model hybrid-level fuel efficiency that could approach 50 mpg.

Like many manufacturers, GM has been wary of diesels despite their chart-topping mileage. The key issue has been the cost of meeting ever-toughening emissions standards. But the industry giant has also been concerned whether U.S. motorists would be turned off by diesel’s other disadvantages.

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The change in mindset might reflect the continuing growth in demand for diesel-powered offerings now provided by most of the German makers, some Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz models seeing diesel options climbing to nearly a third of their powertrain mix.

While several GM officials declined to comment on the record, they privately confirmed that the high-mileage technology is starting to win converts among senior management, especially with the Obama Administration pushing for fuel economy standards to jump from 37.5 mpg in 2016 to as much as 56.2 mpg in 2025.

Holden offers a diesel in its version of the Cruze sedan. A website says that GM is now preparing to bring the diesel to the U.S. market.

For years, executives for the Big Three automakers have said that there wasn’t a viable business case for a small diesel car in the U.S.

Burnin' Oil!

Now it appears General Motors is planning to test the waters with a diesel slated for the 2013 Chevrolet Cruze.

GM Inside News quoted unnamed sources at the Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant that produces the Cruze as saying that management had informed them that a diesel would be added to the Cruze lineup beginning next year.(more…)